Trump Wages War on Clean Energy While China Takes the Lead

In This Issue

• Events

  • August 11: 350 Chicago General Meeting

  • August 13: Sun Day Solar Fest Kickoff Meeting (Third Act IL)

  • August 20: A Fireside Chat With Manuela Zoninsein, Founder & CEO of Kadeya (Chicago Climate Connect)

  • August 21: 350 at the Growing Home Farmers Market

  • August 21: 350 Chicago Speaker Series- China’s Clean Green and Smart Energy Revolution

  • August 23: 350 at the Streamwood Resource Fair

  • August 28: 350 Chicago Happy Hour!

  • August 30: 350 at the Oak Park Farmers Market

• Action Center

  • Tell Your Alder: Support the Hazel M. Johnson Community Impacts Ordinance

  • Online Petition: Climate Safe Pensions

  • Online Petition: Utility Transparency Act

• In Brief

  • 350 Chicago at the Wild Mile

  • Illinois Climate Bank Grant Programs Re-Opening

• Main Article

  • Trump Wages War on Clean Energy While China Takes the Lead

Events

350 Chicago General Meeting

• Monday, August 11, 6:30pm - 7:30pm

• via Zoom

Join 350 Chicago for our General Meeting! During the meeting, we will provide campaign updates and discuss the work 350 Chicago is doing in Chicago and Illinois to help preserve a livable planet. We will also provide information about ways to volunteer and get involved with 350 Chicago. Please email [email protected] to attend the General Meeting, we will send you the zoom link.

Sun Day Solar Fest Kickoff Meeting

• Wednesday, August 13, 6:50pm

• via Zoom

• REGISTER HERE

via Third Act Illinois: Join Third Act Illinois as we prepare for Chicago's Sun Day Solar Fest! Our special guest, Bill McKibben, founder of Third Act and legendary environmentalist, journalist, and advocate for clean energy, will share his vision for this nation-wide celebration of clean energy progress. Questions? Contact [email protected].

A Fireside Chat With Manuela Zoninsein, Founder & CEO of Kadeya

• Wednesday, August 20, 6:00pm - 8:00pm

• mHub, 1623 W Fulton St, Chicago, IL 60612 (free parking available onsite)

via Chicago Climate Connect: Join us for an evening of connection and conversation with Manuela Zoninsein, Founder & CEO of Kadeya, as we explore how reuse infrastructure can drive meaningful systems change. From her work advancing closed-loop beverage solutions to her advocacy around Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policy in Illinois, Manuela brings a sharp perspective on what it takes to shift industries toward circularity. Learn more at CCC here.

350 Chicago Speaker Series: China’s Clean Green and Smart Revolution

• Thursday, August 21, 6:00pm

• via Zoom

• REGISTER HERE

In face of the climate crisis, the Trump Administration rolls back clean energy efforts in the United States. Meanwhile, China is making extraordinary strides in developing the future of clean energy.

The event will feature three world class professionals who specialize in China’s clean energy transition: Changhua Wu, President of Global Climate Academy and Chair of Governing Council of Asia Pacific Water Forum; Peiyuan Guo, Chairman; and SynTao Green Finance and China Representative of UNEP FI, who will be speaking on green finance and corporate sustainability, and Jun Ma, Director, Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, who speak on Solar Map, and Digital Empowerment for corporate environmental information disclosure and reporting.

350 Chicago at Growing Home Farmers Market

• Thursday, August 21, 11:00am - 5:00pm

• Growing Home Farmers Market, 5814 S. Wood St., Chicago, IL

350 Chicago will be tabling at the Growing Home Farmers market in Englewood. For those of you on the south side of Chicago this is a great opportunity to come meet us and help fight climate change by buying postcards and supporting this urban farm!

350 Chicago at Streamwood Resource Fair

• Saturday, August 23, 12:00pm - 2:00pm

• Streamwood Resource Fair at Rahlff's Woods, 1350 S Park Ave, Streamwood, IL

350 Chicago will be tabling at the Streamwood Resource Fair at Rahlff’s Woods collecting signatures for our divestment and utility accountability campaigns!

350 Chicago Happy Hour!

• Thursday, August 28, 5:00pm - 8:00pm

• Adams Street Brewery, 17 W Adams St, Chicago, IL

• REGISTER HERE

350 Chicago is hosting a Happy Hour! Come out to Adams Street Brewery in Chicago's Loop on Thursday, August 18th from 5:00 - 8:00 PM for a bit of socializing with volunteers of our organization and learn about the work 350 Chicago is doing in the city of Chicago and in Illinois. This is a great opportunity for both current volunteers and those who haven’t volunteered before but are curious about what we do! Look for us at one of the larger tables and enjoy a high quality beer and talk about the climate, your favorite book, your favorite baseball team or just about any topic.

Tabling at Oak Park Farmers Market

• Saturday, August 30th from 7:00am - 1:00pm

• Oak Park Farmers Market,

350 Chicago will be tabling at the Oak Park Farmers Market collecting signatures for our divestment and utility accountability campaigns. For those of you in the Western Suburbs it’s a great opportunity to come say hi and make a dent in the battle against the climate crisis!

Action Center

Tell Your Alder: Support the Hazel M. Johnson Community Impacts Ordinance

350 Chicago joins a coalition of environmental organizations in Chicago in support of the Hazel M. Johnson Cumulative Impacts Ordinance. The ordinance seeks to address pollution in Chicago that disproportionally impacts certain communities on the South and West sides. If you want to help, sign the Sierra Club Petition.

Events

Online Petition: Climate Safe Pensions

Investments in fossil fuels are driving climate change, and they are becoming increasingly risky with significant financial liabilities. The state of Illinois can be both a climate leader and protect the health of its pension funds by divesting from fossil fuels. Climate Safe Pensions Illinois, a coalition whose members include 350 Chicago, Third Act Illinois, and The Climate Reality Project Chicago Metro Chapter, is, therefore, asking the State of Illinois to protect pension funds and provide more transparency to the holders.

Learn more and sign here: Climate Safe Pensions Petition!

Online Petition: Utility Transparency Act

Over the years, utilities have made it acceptable to recover some of their costs from ratepayers that should be charged to their shareholders! They routinely charge ratepayers for the cost of a range of lobbying activities without the ratepayers knowledge.

Learn more and sign here: Utility Transparency Petition!

In Brief

350 Chicago at the Wild Mile

350 Chicago collected a record number of postcards at the Urban Rivers Wild Mile Block Party in July. It was an amazing community event where people from Chicago could see the restoration of the Chicago river in action at the Wild Mile. Hundreds of people came out to drink and gather, see the natural scenery, and make a difference by supporting the environmental organizations who were there tabling. We collected close to 200 postcards for the Fossil Fuel Divestment campaign and over 150 postcards for the Utility Transparency campaign!

Illinois Climate Bank Grant Programs Re-Opening

The Illinois Climate Bank is re-opening three of its grant programs. Applications will remain open until December 31, 2025, or until funds are expended. This includes the Stretch Building Code Adoption Support, the Small Utility Clean Energy Planning Grants program, and the SolarAPP+ Adoption Support program.

Trump Wages War on Clean Energy While China Takes the Lead

by Joshua Horwitz

While the Trump administration tries to prop up outdated and destructive energy technologies in America, China is moving quickly to build the next generation of clean energy hardware. And they are exporting their progress at a gigantic scale.

The current political climate can make things seem hopeless, but they aren’t… not yet. We can still meaningfully slow the effects of climate change with “deep, rapid, and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.” (IPCC 6th Assessment Report Summary for Policymakers, Section B.1).

Large scale solar deployment in particular seems to have the most potential to close the gap. This has been a big focus recently of Bill McKibben (co-founder of 350.org), who has been touting the potential of rooftop solar, and is making this a focus of the upcoming “Sun Day” (want to help? Join the kickoff event hosted by Third Act). Additionally, the exciting possibilities of solar were discussed in detail in the fantastic entry in our speaker series: Dr. Seth Darling’s ‘Watt’s Next For Energy?’:

So all hope is not lost: but we are short on time.

Unfortunately and predictably, the difference in climate leadership between the Biden and Trump administrations has been stark. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was ‘the largest investment in climate and energy in American history’, with over $100 billion granted to clean energy projects, with an end goal of creating a pathway to net-zero emissions by 2050.

Trump has been hostile to any environmental progress since day one: gutting the EPA, firing scientists, and pulling us out of international agreements (see our previous newsletters from February, March, and May). Things have only gotten worse as Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ constitutes a shockingly ugly giveaway to polluters, his EPA is preparing to cancel $7 billion in solar grants that have already been granted under the IRA, and now he is exploring a policy that could threaten the $317 billion in Wind Energy projects planned in the US, including $35 billion in Illinois.

Despite Trump’s best efforts, clean energy technology is entrenched by economics: it’s gotten cheaper and cheaper, often surpassing fossil fuels. Additionally, the old myth that clean energy is unreliable is being quickly dispelled. Large scale solar and wind are already playing a pivotal role supporting grid reliability. This shift to clean energy has been happening even under a hostile administration: 81% of installed energy in the US in 2024 was solar.

Additionally, the clean energy industry in the US has created hundreds of thousands of jobs from construction to research to factory work. The current administration is doing their best to put those jobs at risk, and burn the progress we’ve made in clean energy science, research, and development.

Meanwhile, China has been seizing the clean energy opportunity with both hands.

China is by no means running entirely on clean energy, but it is building, deploying, and exporting clean energy technology at gigantic scale. It dominates global manufacturing in solar, wind, batteries, and electric vehicles, which means it is also developing technological expertise in these areas and spurring new research and development. As the New York Times points out, they are already the de facto worldwide leader in these technologies:

While China still burns more coal than the rest of the world and emits more climate pollution than the United States and Europe combined, its pivot to cleaner alternatives is happening at breakneck speed. Not only does China already dominate global manufacturing of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, E.V.s and many other clean energy industries, but with each passing month it is widening its technological lead.

There’s a Race to Power the Future. China Is Pulling Away, New York Times

The fact is that America has to do better. Dialing back progress on clean energy is not only bad for our planet and our children, it’s bad for our economy, bad for grid reliability, bad for energy costs, and bad for American jobs. All of these things take time to build and develop, and time is one thing we have less and less of as the climate crisis worsens.

So the next time someone tells you elections don’t matter and the candidates are all the same, compare the candidates’ stances on climate. Because the decisions we make now and in the next few years will be felt for generations.

Want to learn more about the progress China is making on clean energy? Register for our August 21st Speaker Series entry: China’s Clean, Green Energy Revolution. Like all of our speaker series events it is a FREE event open to the public. Even if you can’t make the event, if you sign up on Zoom you’ll get a copy of the talk emailed to you.

Interested in supporting the work we do, such as our many events above, our speaker series, and this newsletter? Consider becoming a paid subscriber to this newsletter, donate to us directly, or come meet us in person at one of our events listed above (such as our Happy Hour at Adams St brewery!)

Sources linked to in the article above:

• Renewable energy remains cheapest power builds as new gas plants get pricier, by Reuters

• Texas’ Risk of Summer Blackouts Reduced Thanks to Solar and Batteries by Inside Climate News

• 2023 Synthesis Report, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

• The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, by the US Department of Energy (no one tell Trump this is still online!)

• Biden pushes out over $100 billion in clean energy grants as term winds down, by Reuters

• Senate Republicans’ “Big Beautiful Bill” (aka “Big Ugly Bill”) will increase energy costs and destroy our clean energy future., by League of Conservation Voters

• E.P.A. Moves to Cancel $7 Billion in Grants for Solar Energy, by NY Times

• There’s a Race to Power the Future. China Is Pulling Away, by NY Times

• Solar power surged in 2024, by Environment Illinois

• Where does the climate movement go from here? by Bill McKibbon

• Trump's Latest Policy Could Threaten Every Wind Project in America, by Michael Thomas in the Cleanview Newsletter

• Clean Energy Jobs Report, by Climate Power